The ARK Crypto Podcast first started in the late summer of 2018. Since then, over 50 episodes have been released, featuring interviews, introspection, syndications, news and more. After a short break, the podcast is back, bigger and better than ever before. With new content and now fully integrated into the ARK.io website, we’re kicking off things with a special edition episode available today…
Check out the new home of the ARK Crypto Podcast here: https://ark.io/podcast
Full ARK.io Integration
After 52 episodes and a successful first year of the ARK Crypto Podcast, it’s time to build on all the hard work and accomplishments of the podcast by fully integrating it within the ARK.io website.
The design, development, communications and marketing teams all worked together to bring the ARK Crypto Podcast into the ARK.io domain and brand. With this integration, show notes, related links and tagging enable visitors to find exactly what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Additional content, podcast transcripts and being hosted on the main ARK.io domain itself helps boost search-engine visibility and bring more visitors to ARK.io website. In the same vein, visitors to the ARK.io site can now quickly find and become listeners of the ARK Crypto Podcast.
The new web presence allows listeners to:
- Listen continuously in-browser
- Browse episodes by category such as Questions, Walkthroughs, Interviews and more
- Discover related links on episode details pages
- Refer to episode timestamps as well as read and translate transcripts
- Subscribe directly from the site using numerous 3rd-party services
Why a Podcast?
Over the last five years, the number of weekly podcasts has grown exponentially with around one in five young adults now listening to podcasts every week. 36% of listeners listen to podcasts between three and ten hours per week, with a further 12% listening to ten hours or more. — 7DNews.com
PodcastInsights.com also reported on some data released during 2018 and 2019. In one of the data reports, Apple confirmed that as of Summer 2019, there are over 750,000 shows available (up from 550,000 the year prior). Smartphones appear to be driving this growth, showing a 157% increase in smartphone usage since 2014.
Podcasts are a great way to educate and entertain, especially in a fast-paced world full of multi-taskers. Some people who might be turned off to reading a blog article might be happy to listen to the same content during a commute or even cooking a meal.
Now that I think about it, I’m a bit surprised that there aren’t more podcasts out there that are specific to one altcoin in particular. I had expected most cryptocurrency projects out there to have a podcast to match, but there just weren’t many out there. When I noticed this last year, I thought launching a podcast for ARK would be a great way to give crypto enthusiasts who already love podcasts a way to get to know the ARK blockchain project better. When I brought this up to Chairman of ARK.io Matthew DC in the Summer of 2018, I was surprised to learn he was actually an avid podcast fan and had been trying to get an ARK-themed podcast put together for some time. The rest is history, and over fifty episodes later, it’s time to discuss the future of the ARK Crypto Podcast.
Content Improvements
As well as being integrated into the ARK.io website, we’re also making a number of improvements to the content and structure of the podcasts. Moving forward, there will be a stronger focus on a few key areas that we believe can help take the podcast to the next level:
- Introduce more convenience for people who prefer the podcast medium in the first place. In some ways, we will be ‘flipping the script.’ We will be looking at the podcast as more than just supplemental content to what we’re already doing on the blog, Twitter, YouTube, etc —we will start treating the listener as someone who wants to know everything that’s going on with ARK, but may not have the time or preference to do it using other forms of ARK media. This means that moving forward, if you listen to the ARK Crypto Podcast and don’t consume any other ARK media at all, you’ll feel better informed than you would have from listening to previous episodes.
- Bring more voices to the podcast. Aside from the usual benefits that the podcast format brings, podcasts offer a unique opportunity to bring people closer together and build communities. To that end, we want to bring the team and community even closer together, so we’ll be implementing a few ideas. You’ll hear more team members weighing in on various ARK activities and progress in short pre-recorded clips. For example, you may hear Strategic Partnerships Manager Ray Alvarez expand on a recent partnership, or Chairman Matthew DC discuss roadmap progress. You may hear CTO Kristjan Košič provide a short rundown on the deployment of a specific technical implementation. These ‘check-ins,’ as we call them, won’t stop with the team, though. For example, you may hear a quick five-minute dev update from Dean Van Dugteren, Founder of nOS building on ARK. More voices will bring more diversity to the podcast.
- Tell real stories that relate to the overall blockchain community and beyond. Podcasts as a medium offer something unique because they tap into a centuries-old practice — hearing someone else tell a compelling story. Moving forward, we will be taking more opportunities to create content within the context of not just ARK, but the entire blockchain and crypto space. For example, an interesting piece of blockchain news may prove to be a good starting point to draw correlations with the overall ARK vision.
- Consistent opportunities to contribute. As a community member, you’ll be able to ask questions via Twitter/Reddit/Slack, etc. that we discuss on the podcast, or even provide anonymous rebuttals/reactions to podcast content that I can read on future episodes and expand on. Let’s make it community-oriented, let’s make it fun, let’s get engaged!
How Can I Listen?
Catch up on the latest podcast episodes , browse all episodes or take a look at this ‘greatest hits’ list to find a new favorite. You can also subscribe wherever you find your favorite podcasts, and follow ARK.io on Twitter for in-tweet episodes.
Thanks for supporting the ARK Ecosystem!
